As Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, steps onto the stage in the Big Apple, she is not only considering which jokes to tell. Additionally, she weighs what subjects to steer clear of. “I refrain from openly criticizing the government,” she stated. Or if she ventures there, she ensures it's not captured for social media. “I'd never publish openly content where I directly criticize authorities … I believe this is a habit from China.”
Wang, 39, lived in the Chinese metropolis for almost ten years, leaving in 2022. By 2025, she moved to the US. Upon arrival, she embarked on an intense period of “revenge bingeing on democracy,” going to lectures, protests, and exploring New York’s public library.
But over the past year since Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, there has been a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, she says. “Back home, I knew the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on shifting sands.”
Wang’s concerns reflect a new political reality in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those with experience in China, perceive as disturbingly familiar. Enemies face exclusion. The president demands total allegiance. Journalists are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for Xi Jinping, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described Xi as “fantastic”. When they reached a temporary truce in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of countries with diametrically opposed political systems became clear. And after decades of optimism in America that improved relations with the East could assist the growing nation to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems that the US is shifting in the Chinese direction, rather than vice versa.
“America is undergoing a period of cultural revolution,” said Zhang Qianfan, an academic at a top Chinese university. “The president, Donald Trump, is trying to rally the grassroots in order to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in China half a century ago.”
Since Trump unleashed the so-called a government streamlining body, or the agency, on federal institutions early on of his term, many in China have viewed US politics via the perspective of China's historical period. Whether it is the mobilisation of the youth to carry out presidential directives, or purging organizations of those deemed opposition, the president from a Chinese viewpoint has delivered Mao-style chaos to the US, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
However after the upheaval of the initial period of the new administration has calmed, an unfamiliar, different kind of political atmosphere has emerged in the US, which in different ways seems familiar to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Lighthouse Has Become Dimmer’
The deepest parallel between Trump’s America and China is the crackdown on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party dissenter, found himself in a controversy recently, similar to what he’d only previously experienced in China. He has lived in the US since 2019, having fled the country because of pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, he posted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people nationwide – who lost their jobs as a result of expressing criticism regarding him – he encountered significant backlash. Relatives had personal info leaked and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I never imagined that something like this could happen in the United States – what should only happen in an authoritarian country,” Deng said.
Deng’s pile on originated from online peers, instead of the state, but that kind of public monitoring also has similarities with China.
“Regarding going after dissenters and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted an academic, a scholar at a US university. “This is observed in China today as too,” she added, stating that concerns are rising in America of students reporting on educators, a type of surveillance promoted by Chinese authorities.
Zhang, the Peking University law professor, said that progressive thinkers such as him used to look to the US for ideals, in part because public debate on domestic politics in the country is risky. However, “America isn't some kind of ideal for progressive Chinese. America’s image has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed the US as the beacon of democratic governance, but since the new administration, this lighthouse appears dimmer”.
Chinese liberals, typically, at least in private, critical of China’s political system, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, Zhang said. “It's somewhat difficult to acknowledge this reality … but after the pandemic, the government appears to be pursuing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and tech investment,” he noted, while “the West, exemplified by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with China, where the line between government and business is often blurred.
Recently, the US government announced it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on rare earth processing, following comparable shares in other companies it considers essential for national security. The deals have left some investors nervous that the US is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
There are still significant distinctions between the US under Trump and the East. In October, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a Pentagon policy that demanded they only report on government-authorised information. US courts have halted or reversed numerous presidential measures, an action that would be unthinkable in the nation's party-dominated legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “America could descend into its gravest challenge of all time, far more severe than it is now, and it would remain more free, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
The professor notes that although many intellectuals in China were surprised to see US universities capitulate to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and free speech on campus, in China, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. University leaders, which are selected by the government, “cannot refuse. They can’t afford to be disobedient.”
Still, Americans are starting to take precautions that were once associated with more authoritarian countries. An academic at a US university once outspoken on US-China issues declined to be interviewed for this piece. He said: “The truth is, I am scared of the censorship here: I genuinely feel more comfortable criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
